Um... http://articles.cnn.com/2010-01-27/politics/obama.gays.military_1_repeal-policy-that-bars-gays-servicemembers-legal-defense-network?_s=PM:POLITICS

I agree that he did not physically vote for this and he could have done far more but to say this is "no thanks to Obama" is just plain wrong.

Yeah it's a cool project and another reason why the JVM is what matters not Java it self.

If you are referring to what I said about twitter there are several reasons I can think of why they would move to Scala instead of using JRuby. The main one is that the JVM does not yet have native support for weakly typed languages. JRuby is fast but held back by the need to make a weak typing layer over the JVM. The Da Vinci project will fix this but there is not yet a release of Java that plans to include it.

The other two reasons are that
1) I'm guessing twitter is a small application so a full rewrite is not a big task
2) Scala is designed for scaling (hence the name) while Ruby was designed to be a fun language to write in that got back to the SmallTalk roots of OOP

I know this sounds like I'm trolling but the speed of the JVM blows Python out of the water.

Most of the time that JavaScript file was uploaded by a Java server. There is a good reason that twitter moved from Ruby to Scala, Scala runs on the JVM and the JVM is fast (despite what people tend to think).

As I understand it IBM is a 'solution company' AKA they make their money by solving your problems. They don't really care about HOW they solve it or whit what as long as you are happy. An Oracle DB vs a IBM DB does not matter. In fact pushing software that is not the right fit would cost them in the long run because they want your support contract. They do a good job and you will stay signed on.

This is why Java and Linux are valuable to them. The software costs nothing to install, they can afford the technical power to install and run it and if push comes to shove and they REALLY need to they can throw programmers at it to fix bugs. They don't care how it works only that it works.

Bringing this back to Oracle. Siding against Oracle is biting the hand that feeds them since they need to work with them to get Oracle server bugs fixed. Oracle likes to hold a grudge and might go nuts on IBM if they don't toe the line. As long as they can fix Java bugs via OpenJDK and JCP the actual license of Java for others does not matter to them. While siding with Oracle might hurt them in the long run fighting them is a bigger risk(Oracle to IBM:"oh you needed that bug fixed THIS year?") for little reward (IBM:"Hurray! Java is free! Now we can view the source and fix bugs....just like before....").

Java is irrelevant compared to the JVM. All the cool powers that Java has are coded in to the JVM with some incredibly impressive run times. As a Java programmer I consider the language it self ugly but the JVM magic.

I agree. My guess is that in his eyes he won the game. He made more money then anyone else in the world. There was other option then to start playing a different game, "Save the world". Thank god it was not "Rule the world". He has a shit-ton of money, he could have made some real damage before he would have gotten stopped.

plus figure some undocumented stuff out

For me that's the killer of closed source. For open source rare problems are often unfixed but well documented in blog posts that contain long strings of profanity typically ending in "I can't believe that X works like this". Closed source tends to have shaky uncertain explanations on how people think things function. Since only a hand full of people in the whole world have the access to reverse engineer the problem correctly no one really knows what is going on.

I'm ignoring the power to read the code your self because while I have needed to resort to that in the past
1) most people don't have time to
2) jumping in to another code base is typically a lengthy process and people typically don't have the time to do it for a minor bug.
Having said that. It's the ultimate "oh god I need to fix this no matter what and time is not a issue" documentation.

Is there any reason Wayland can't make an X-server look alike layer for that as well? It would be extra over head for the PC hosting a wayland server but it would a low things to work and ease a transition to Wayland.

Not as much as you think. A friend tried to refinance for student loans and they would not let him since he graduated (no new student loans) and had such bad credit from having so much debt and such a little income. Credit cards charge a lot to move a balance unless you open up a new card and that dings your credit score and will likely not take the whole balance. I know little about home loans but I bet the bank is doing something there as well to prevent people from getting a deal that easy.

My student loans are at a fixed rate, not everyone took out a ARM, and credit cards have limits on how quickly the rate can change. Also fixed interest takes PROJECTED inflation in to account, they expect us to be doing a lot better right now then we are so people with a fixed rate are getting screwed with such low inflation.

Most companies have stabilized by laying people off or cutting salaries. Mine did the latter because it was basically in the same boat I am, they have their own business loans to pay off.

Inflation will let them raise their prices -> they can better pay their loans -> I can get my 6% back -> I can spend money again -> people can get jobs at the stores I am now buying stuff from.

Rapid inflation is a problem but having such low inflation for so long is also really bad.

Most families are in debt and someone in them has decent job. Some inflation will help them by reducing their existing debt in comparison to their income because it will increase to match inflation. When the recession hit my job not only did not give a 3% pay increase but gave company wide 6% pay cut. This greatly screwed up me paying off college. I for one could use a little inflation.

Honest question: Have you ever seen a candidate who you would rate as not evil? I ask because I think that no one is perfect so if you refuse to vote until you find the perfect politician you will never vote.

For the people I have meet in the past with your stance that was basically the point. They were just after an easy out from the whole political process. In other words they did not want to see the person they support not make it in or worse make it in and then do a horrible job. So order to avoid the painful cognitive dissonance of hating someone they voted for they just don't vote.

I know this sounds harsh but I don't blame you or any from giving up on the system, Politics is a mess. But it's a mess because NO system works not because our system it particularly bad. In order to fix issues in the system people need to vote in every election for people who are closer to what they want. Abstaining until the perfect candidate descends from heaven is not a real plan. Furthermore even if your perfect candidate does arrive and most people think like you your perfect candidate will be the ONLY perfect candidate in the system, an ignored minority. You need to find and vote for the people who are closest to your ideals so that next election the candidates will hopefully be even closer.

James Gosling confirmed this some time ago "During the integration meetings between Sun and Oracle where we were being grilled about the patent situation between Sun and Google, we could see the Oracle lawyer's eyes sparkle. Filing patent suits was never in Sun's genetic code. Alas.... " http://nighthacks.com/roller/jag/entry/the_shit_finally_hits_the